


cold

by magliarosa



Category: Cycling RPF
Genre: 2019 Tour de France, Angst, Eventual Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:55:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29418990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magliarosa/pseuds/magliarosa
Summary: “Why are you here?” It’s a genuine question. Mathieu considers it.“I came to see for myself.”“Well, you’re seeing.” A laugh, unexpected. “I’m fucked.”Mathieu doesn’t smile. He goes quiet for a moment.“I didn’t want it to be true.”
Relationships: Wout van Aert/Mathieu van der Poel
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	1. linoleum

**Author's Note:**

> returning to the content we all love: mathieu and wout angst

His mind’s in a fog from the drugs.

In and out of sleep, he dreams of the same beige walls he sees when he’s awake, but in his dreams, they are fuzzy and vaguely threatening. His wife of one year watches over him, organizes his cards and balloons and little gifts, paces around, and it drives him crazy, so crazy he tells her at some point to go back home and prepare for him there, and she does, because the last thing she wants is to argue with a devastated, injured man, lest that get in the way of his recovery.

What day was that? Was it contentious? It's a blur, all of it. 

He’s roused from sleep. The nurse comes and bathes him, but he’s not all there when she does – the sensations don’t quite register with the images of himself, bandaged and propped up in a sling. Another surgery tomorrow, they inform him. His _directeur sportif_ comes by in the evening, gives him updates on the Tour de France, which is happening without him now, tells him things that could have been a phone call and will be tomorrow. Cycling waits for no one. He listens with blank eyes. Everything tastes like cotton balls and smells like rubbing alcohol.

The drugs numb it all and he’s thankful for it, really, genuinely thankful. Morphine and sedatives keep him from reckoning with the fear and sadness lurking deep in his belly, somewhere disconnected from his most basic functions of living. 

* * *

The sun’s up but he doesn’t know what time it is. He’s been staring at the television, which is muted, reading the subtitles of some sort of home renovation show, each word slipping from his consciousness as soon as he grasps it. Sometimes he checks whether he can still move his fingers, otherwise he’d be utterly still. The surgery was a success, they tell him, or was that yesterday? Fuck, who cares. The television shows a woman with a sledgehammer knocking down what looks to be a perfectly fine wall. 

A knock on the door.

“You have a visitor,” the nurse tells him in English.

“Who?” he asks, not expecting anyone.

“A friend, he says.”

All of his teammates are long gone to other parts of France, seeking glory. His wife is back in Belgium with his parents helping get the house in order for his return. His hometown friends have no idea where to find him. He’s at a loss as to who it could be.

“Okay,” he replies, out of pure curiosity. She steps aside and a man enters, one he knows well, but this man is not his friend. The nurse, sensing tension, leaves them alone.

The man is dressed in a rather smart pair of chinos and a plain t-shirt, his cropped blond hair slicked back, his blue eyes in a staring contest with the linoleum floor. He is an unexpected visitor.

“Hey Wout,” he says, voice flat and quiet.

“Mathieu,” Wout acknowledges.

Mathieu van der Poel takes a seat in the armchair by Wout’s bed, folds his fingers together. The two sit there in silence, Wout waiting for Mathieu to look at him, waiting for Mathieu to see the sorry state he’s in, to say something. It takes a very long time for this to happen, but when it does, Wout is genuinely surprised by the emotion in those cold eyes, a kind of probing anxiety.

“Things weren’t supposed to go like this,” Mathieu murmurs after an endless silence.

“No shit,” Wout frowns. “Did you come here to gloat or feel sorry for me?”

“They say you might not come back.” Is that a scintilla of fear Wout hears in that deadpan voice?

“They do.” Wout’s eyes are heavy on Mathieu.

“That’s not true, is it?”

Wout sighs. “I don’t know yet. Don’t celebrate too soon.”

“Why would I celebrate?” Mathieu’s visibly hurt by the accusation, but tries and succeeds at concealing it.

Wout would shrug if he could. “Things are going to be a lot easier for you.”

“You think I want that? I don’t.”

“Why are you here?” It’s a genuine question. Mathieu considers it.

“I came to see for myself.”

“Well, you’re seeing.” A laugh, unexpected, bitter. “I’m fucked.”

Mathieu doesn’t smile. He goes quiet for a moment.

“I didn’t want it to be true.”

Wout does not know how to respond to such a statement. Mathieu scoots the chair closer to the edge of the bed, looks at Wout, searches his eyes in that all-consuming way of his. Wout’s trapped under the stare.

“How are you feeling?” Mathieu asks.

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

Wout chuckles. “I’m fucked up on drugs. I sleep most of the time. I’m in and out of surgery, and my wife and Grischa Niermann call me constantly. The world is sludge and I feel like absolute fucking shit.”

Mathieu glances nervously at the leg, suspended above the bed in an intricate contraption.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yeah. A lot. Extremely.”

Mathieu rubs his eyes, like he’s trying to physically force the emotion out of his face.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “I hate seeing you like this.”

Another laugh. “So, you drove all the way to France to pity me?”

Something in the room lets out a tinny ring. The door opens and the nurse appears again.

Wout turns to Mathieu and flashes him a sly grin. “Time for more drugs,” he says, conveniently in Dutch.

The nurse, a stocky blonde woman in her thirties, gives Wout a look, glances at Mathieu.

“He’s fine,” Wout says in English. The nurse nods, pulls out a syringe and injects its contents into the IV drip. Mathieu sees Wout instantly relax, his long eyelashes hovering heavily over now-listless brown eyes. The nurse disposes of the syringe and asks Wout if he needs anything. He replies that he does not. She leaves, giving Mathieu a nod.

Wout is helpless, utterly helpless, and he can tell that this affects Mathieu deeply from the horrified stare he receives. All Wout can manage is the meeting of eyes, and this breaks something in his companion, who buries his face in his hands.

“Fuck,” he breathes, the word coming out shallow. Wout’s brain is soup from the drugs, and all movement is heavy and difficult.

“Do you want to stay?” he asks, his words slurred together. “I’m just…going to sleep, I think.”

“Yeah,” Mathieu answers. “Is that okay?”

Wout smiles loosely, his eyes closed. The sound of his breathing fills the room. Mathieu curls up in the uncomfortable, ugly armchair, and watches him sleep, deeply afraid that he won't wake up. 

* * *

When Wout rouses again, later in the evening, Mathieu is still there, passed out with his arms around his knees. The sight of him sleeping moves Wout in some strange way. He’s never seen Mathieu so docile before. Warm. 

_Why are you here?_

He observes Mathieu until the nurse comes in and quietly informs him that all guests have to leave for the night.

“Mathieu,” Wout says, and Mathieu jolts awake, realizes he’s been caught in a moment of vulnerability and quickly gathers himself. He can infer by the presence of the nurse what’s going on.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he mutters, looking at his shoes as he rushes out of the room. Bewildered, half-aware, Wout doesn’t have time to protest.

When the nurse reapplies the drugs, this time with the heavy sedative, Wout’s dreams of the beige wall are accompanied by a soft voice saying _I hate seeing you like this. I didn’t want it to be true._


	2. sleepwalking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> c/w medical stuff 
> 
> btw all this medical stuff is based off the time my wisdom teeth extraction got botched and they put me on like a million painkillers when they fixed my jaw. not a great time!

Mathieu doesn’t know why he’s doing this.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks hurriedly to the gray, generic rental car in the hospital parking lot, illuminated from above by the towering lights casting a long shadow behind him in the humid night. The air in the car is stale when Mathieu climbs inside. He starts the engine, pulls out, drives away, his face pale in the glow of the GPS giving him tinny directions to his hotel.

_What the fuck am I doing?_

Mathieu doesn’t like Wout, and Wout doesn’t like him. They have never been close, have never been friends. Their relationship exists solely in a space of polite detachment, their personal interactions consisting mainly of occasional pats on the back or short conversations. Still, the mere thought of Wout’s absence from the peloton has affected Mathieu deeply in unexpected ways. Watching the images of Wout on the ground in abject horror and pain flash across his TV screen made Mathieu’s breath grow tight and his pulse spasm and the ensuing, persisting thought of Wout never getting back up again makes Mathieu want to scream – in what way, or why, Mathieu's not sure. Wout, on the bike, is known for his power, his sheer physical strength, his ability to brave the worst conditions and turn them to his advantage. To see him weak and fucked up on drugs is devastating, terrible, a grave injustice.

"Turn left at the light."

_Without Wout, what the fuck am I gonna do? Who the fuck else is there? The whole ‘cross peloton’s shit. He was the only one worth anything._

A more sickening thought: _I need him._ Mathieu rationalizes it. _Without Wout, there’s no motivation, nothing worth fighting against. Without Wout, shit would be so fucking boring. Everything would be too easy, and what’s the point in that? That’s not racing, that’s nothing._

Easy? Mathieu recalls what Wout told him a few hours ago: Things are going to be a lot easier for you.

_I don’t want that – how could you think I’d want that? That’s no way to win. That's coward shit. We were supposed to fight until the very end, supposed to run each other into the ground. That’s why we’re here, Wout. That’s why there’s two of us. That's why there’s Mathieu and Wout on this earth._

He pulls into the hotel parking lot, checks his phone. There’s four missed calls, all from his coach and Adrie. Mathieu holds the button down, shuts his phone off, grabs his duffel bag stuffed with whatever he could find in the laundry room from the back seat and slings it over his shoulder. When he checks in, he’s not all there, asks for the Wi-Fi passcode at least three times. The only thing he can think about is the sight of Wout slung up with IVs in his arms, his eyes clouded from a heavy dose of painkillers. Mathieu never wanted to see him like that, never wanted anything worse than a puncture to happen to Wout despite their years of brinkmanship and mind-games and bullshit. As he opens the door to the room - standard hotel fare - he regrets all the times he hated Wout, wished Wout would quit the sport, wished Wout would just go away. _I was just angry,_ he pleads, _I didn’t mean it. I just hate losing._ He knows it’s irrational, but he can’t help thinking: _What if this is all somehow my fault?_

Mathieu strips out of his clothes and heads to the bathroom, turns up the shower as hot as it will go, takes a piss as he waits for steam to fill the room.

 _Am I a good person?_ He wonders, stepping into the glass stall. _Could I have been better to him? I’m not a bad person, but I could be nicer. I don't want bad things for other people, I just want good things for myself. I want to win, want to be the best. It’s not easy to make friends when that’s your goal.  
_

Mathieu runs shampoo through his blond hair, scrubs it clean, freeing it of the day's pomade. He watches the soap cascade along the dips and curves of his disciplined body. After a minute of so of letting the water wash over him, it collects in his folded arms. He unfolds them and listens to it slosh onto the tile with a dull splash.

 _Wout was always so nice to me, even when we were kids. It’s not that I don’t like him, even though that’s what I tell myself all the time. He’s a hard guy to dislike – he’s so easy-going and kind and, like,_ normal _. I’ve always been a little cold to him, but can anyone blame me? I didn’t want him to get too close – that’s risky, can make you distracted. He’s still the enemy. No, it’s better to just be polite, professional._

Mathieu drafts a list of the most important people to him. His father, his coaches, his brother, his teammates, his girlfriend, his grandfather, and, yes, Wout. He realizes that Wout is a dominating force in his life, that Wout’s presence informs everything Mathieu does just as much as Adrie’s, if not more. Mathieu’s not racing against his father, after all. For Wout to be gone…Mathieu can’t imagine it, he just can’t. He is unable to picture his life as a cyclist without Wout in it. He assumed, point blank, that Wout would be riding in his slipstream forever.

The last of the soap foams and bubbles down the drain. Mathieu’s too anxious to eat – hospitals and travel both make him nervous. The best thing, he figures, is to try and get some rest, especially considering he's had a series of sleepless nights. He dries himself off, throws on some underwear, brushes his teeth.

In the darkness, Mathieu lays in bed and stares at the ceiling.

_You’ve got to get better. You’ve just got to._

* * *

Wout finishes up his breakfast, handing the half-empty tray to the nurse. He’s sick of hospital food. It tastes like cardboard and the drugs give him nausea. Every meal is a struggle, even chocolate cake. Still, when the drugs come that morning, he’s happy. The scars and bandages are starting to itch something awful, and all Wout wants is to claw his own knee off, but if he shifts his weight in any way, pain shoots through everything. There’s no reprieve, nothing to look forward to. Wout’s a prisoner in his own body, can sense himself wasting away every day he’s stuck here, and he hates it, hates it vehemently.

At least when the drugs kick in he doesn’t feel anything, and so, he looks forward to them, looks forward to the numb sleepiness. Within a few minutes, the room disappears, is replaced with vague, foggy movement and an hour’s respite from having to exist in the world.

* * *

Long eyelashes blink back sleep and streaks of light filter into the room.

“Hey.”

Wout turns his head slowly to see Mathieu sitting there reading a cycling magazine in the armchair. Wout gives him a slight smile. He’s happy to see him, happy to not be alone, even if it’s just Mathieu.

“Hey,” he mumbles.

“Did you see this?” Mathieu asks, showing Wout the magazine. Wout squints to try and make sense of the page. Something about electric shifting.

“It’ll be wireless by 2022, they say,” Mathieu comments. “A bike without shifter cables.”

“No thanks,” Wout replies. “Sounds fucked if it’s broken. God…” he tries to get the words to form on his numb lips. His speech lurches like a drunk person, his brain getting lost halfway through sentences. “God forbid your derailleur is off by a millimeter.”

A frown. “Putting the cables in the frame isn’t much better.”

“We used…used to ride cross on rim brakes. I’m, uh, fine with the cables.” Wout yawns.

Mathieu smiles toothily, the smile of someone who’s not used to smiling. “We did use to use rim brakes, huh? They’d get caked in all that mud.”

“Mm. Quieter…though.”

“Yeah.”

They fall silent.

“Sorry,” Wout murmurs. “I’m tired.”

“Do you want me to go?” Mathieu gets up.

“Up to you.”

Mathieu sits back down again, restless anxiety in his eyes as he watches Wout drift in and out of consciousness.

* * *

“Fuck, ah!”

The hissing scream startles Mathieu from the catnap he’d fallen into quite easily after the previous night’s tossing and turning. He shoots upright in his chair. Wout’s face is contorted in helpless pain.

“Fuck, what is it?” Mathieu asks hurriedly. “Should I get the nurse?”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Wout swears, jamming the button for the attendant, who comes in quickly.

“Something slipped,” he says, panicked, through shallow, heaving breaths. “In the brace.”

The nurse readjusts the sling, rotates Wout’s leg in it, checks if the movement caused any damage to the healing wound.

“What did you do?” she asks him.

“I was sleeping! I don’t know!”

“Do you sleepwalk?”

“What?” The question seems absurd to Wout in his state. He hisses loudly as she lifts the dressing, his eyebrows knitted in distress. Mathieu can only watch it all unfold in horror, the tears of pain rolling down Wout’s face, his hands gripping the sheets just to grip on to something, the red coloring the bandages in dark pools, the sight of the long syringe being injected into the IV drip.

“You tried to sleepwalk,” the nurse informs him. “Tried to get out of the brace. That’s the only explanation. We’ll increase the sedative.”

“I don’t sleepwalk,” Wout protests, grimacing as the nurse wraps the wound with fresh gauze. “I’ve never sleepwalked.”

“It’s not uncommon, especially under stress, or, in your case, when you’re on light sedatives.” Another syringe. “Okay. You should start to feel better now.”

Mathieu sees Wout’s pupils widen, turning his eyes into dark pools.

“You didn’t do too much damage,” the nurse informs him. “The doctor will look at it tomorrow morning, per schedule.” Wout doesn’t respond. He’s somewhere else. She turns to Mathieu. “Sorry,” she offers, and leaves the room.

Wout’s chest is still heaving in the silence.

“Are you alright?” Mathieu asks, clearly shaken by the ordeal.

“I had a dream where I couldn’t move,” Wout’s words are almost incoherent, like he’s talking with cotton balls in his mouth. “I thought I wasn’t gonna get up.” A hiss. “Fuck, fuck,” he swears, fumbling clumsily with the sheet. Mathieu rises from his seat, takes the blanket, untangles it from Wout’s limbs and drapes it evenly over him, feeling terribly awkward as he does it. His bedside manner needs serious work.

“Thanks,” Wout mutters.

Mathieu realizes he’s holding his breath as he waits for Wout’s breathing to turn from the shallow hisses of pain into the deep, rhythmic heaves of sleep. When he finally sees Wout’s face go slack with unconsciousness, Mathieu grants the stress-induced tears permission to fall down his face. _What the fuck? What the fuck just happened?_ He hears the scream in his mind, his panicked heart reaming in his chest. _Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ._

For all his coldness, for all his ruthlessness, for all his purported lack of empathy, Mathieu van der Poel cannot stand the sight of human suffering. The last time he saw someone so strong in such distress, in so much pain, so utterly helpless, it was his grandfather, reclined in a similar hospital bed after a heart attack. The doctor said there would be more, in the serious voice doctors use when it’s time to acquaint family members with the possibility of death.

* * *

Wout’s awake for once when Mathieu gets there the following day.

“Hey,” Mathieu says, eyes glued to linoleum yet again. He’ll never get used to the sight of Wout like this.

“Hey.”

Mathieu can hear the smile in it.

“What’d the doctor say?” he asks, about the wound.

“No damage.”

“Fuck, thank God,” Mathieu exhales. “That’s good to hear.”

“Yep.”

Nervously. “Are you going back to sleep?”

“Yeah, probably.” They meet each other’s gazes. “But you can still talk to me.”

“I don’t want to bother you,” Mathieu protests.

“Might keep me from sleepwalking,” Wout suggests. “I don’t know, though. I don’t know how any of that shit works.”

“Okay, well, what should I talk about?”

“Dunno. I guess just read from the magazine if you can’t think of anything.”

Awkwardly. “Okay.”

Mathieu picks the magazine up off the bedside table where he left it yesterday, opens it to the beginning. “Do you, uh, want me to start with the letters to the editor?”

“No, those always suck,” Wout frowns.

“So the first article, then.”

Wout closes his eyes. “Sure.”

Mathieu begins to read, feeling rather like a schoolboy when he starts off, but he slowly gets used to the words on his tongue, the cadences of the writing. Some of the articles are better than others. The ones about racing Mathieu always disagrees with, but he enjoys the gear reviews and the more cultural and historical selections. There’s a good piece in there about Roger De Vlaeminck’s cyclocross career that pulls smiles out of the corners of Mathieu’s lips when he reads some of the better lines. Sometimes, he’ll look up and check on Wout, who’s usually fast asleep, his face childlike, twitching ever so often. A few times, however, Wout's awake for an hour or so, listening attentively, responding to Mathieu's passages by smiling or laughing or saying, “shit, that sounds about right.”

The nurse always returns with the syringe after Wout regains any bit of cogency, and within the span of a few minutes, sleep inevitably reclaims him.

Asleep and awake, drugged and lucid, Wout listens as Mathieu reads the magazine cover to cover, including the letters to the editor, tacked on at the end.

The day passes quickly this way. When its time for Mathieu to leave, Wout is passed out, his jaw slack.

"Sleep well," Mathieu whispers, rising from his chair. "I'll be back tomorrow."

* * *

The sound of the armchair feet on squeaky linoleum as Mathieu scoots closer to the edge of the bed.

“They’re weaning me off the sedatives,” Wout informs him.

“Probably for the best,” Mathieu shrugs.

“Probably, yeah. The painkillers still put me to sleep, though. Out like a light.”

“Those are hard to get off of aren’t they?” Mathieu inquires nervously.

“That’s why they do it slowly.”

 _Are you scared?_ Mathieu wants to ask him, but doesn’t. It would come off wrong.

* * *

“You okay?” Wout’s voice is gentle, rippling through their long silence.

“Yeah,” Mathieu murmurs. “It’s just that –“ he stops himself.

“What?” Genuine curiosity, care. How can he not respond to that?

Mathieu speaks quietly, trying to mask some of his vulnerability with hulking shoulders and dull murmurs.

“It’s just that all this hospital shit reminds me of when my grandfather had a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry,” his companion says softly. 

“It was a while ago,” Mathieu sighs. “Months, I guess. He’s sick now, too, though. Really sick.”

“Fuck,” Wout murmurs. “I don’t know what to say, Mathieu. That’s terrible.”

Mathieu shrugs. “That’s life.”

Empathetic silence.

“What’s he like, Poulidor?” Wout reconsiders the question the second it’s asked. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. Fuck, you just said thinking about all this made you upset.”

“No, no,” Mathieu protests. “It’s okay.” He ponders the best way to characterize his grandfather, who is such an eccentric, lovable character, and finally settles on one.

“He’s a great man,” Mathieu says, with reverence. “There’s really no one like him.”

That’s when the storytelling starts.

Mathieu begins with Poulidor, with the way he plays cards at the dinner table with Mathieu’s father, the way he kisses Mathieu’s mother on the cheek, calls her French pet names, the way he would play little tricks on Mathieu and his brother David when they were kids, finding a coin behind his ear, other light sleights of hand. Mathieu recalls the long, winding stories his grandfather would tell about the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix, all the other cyclists – Eddy Merckx, Anquetil, especially.

During this, Wout tries his best to stay awake and listen, but sometimes the world lurches to sludge around him and he wakes up in the middle of a different story.

For four days, Mathieu comes and talks. He talks about watching his father Adrie race on television, talks about meeting his heroes. He talks about his childhood, his rivalry with his brother. At some point around the middle of the second day, Mathieu gets the idea that maybe if he talks about all the times Wout beat him, it’ll encourage him, make him feel stronger, speed up his recovery. So he talks about that, about the World Championships and the Superprestiges and the road races and he laughs when he talks about them, remembers how much fun it was to lose, how pissed off he was, recalls with photographic precision the exact moments of triumph and defeat, something that impresses Wout, for whom racing seems like a chaotic blur with only snippets remembered here and there, a collage rather than a photograph. Mathieu talks about the upcoming races, uses language like, “When you come back,” and “After you’re better,” and soon, Wout, who has tried to be sober and realistic about all of this - who has tried to anticipate the worst - starts to hope, and hope stupidly, sloppily. 

On the fourth day, the nurse takes the leg out of the sling.

On the fourth day, Wout starts to tell stories of his own.

On the fourth day, Adrie calls Mathieu four times in a row.

On the fourth day, Mathieu, in his hotel room, finally calls his father back.

“Where the hell are you?” Adrie shouts. Mathieu winces.

“France,” Mathieu answers vaguely.

“Nobody knows where the fuck you’ve been, Matje. There’s a race in three weeks and everyone on the team is looking for you, freaking out. Training starts tomorrow. Now. What the actual _fuck_ are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Mathieu mutters. “Stuff. I dunno, I needed to get away.”

Adrie’s voice is grave, austere. “Mathieu, this is sounding extremely sketchy. Fucking off to France in the middle of racing season without telling anyone? Staying in weird hotels? Now you can tell me the truth, or I can assume the worst.”

The gears click for Mathieu. “Jesus, Dad! Fuck, no, it’s not anything like that. You really think I’m out here...?” he doesn't finish the sentence.

“I have no idea what you’re up to out there, so yeah, right now I do, actually.”

“No, no, no way in hell, Dad,” Mathieu protests. He sighs. “Look, I, uh…it’s personal, okay?”

“Is it a girl?” Adrie immediately assumes. “Christ, you really are your grandfather –“

“Will you _stop_?” Mathieu’s face is bright red. “No, it’s not that either.”

“So what is it?”

“Fucking hell, aren’t I entitled to a private life?”

“No,” Adrie answers in a way that shuts down any such possibility. “Now tell me.”

Mathieu exhales deeply. “Fine,” he confesses. “I came to see Wout in the hospital.”

Adrie’s relief is palpable. “Jesus, why the hell didn’t you just say that?”

Mathieu is unsure. “It was personal,” he replies. It’s the best answer he can give.

“That was nice of you,” Adrie commends him. “Very sportsmanlike. How’s he doing? That crash looked nasty.”

“Better,” Mathieu says absently. “He’s doing better.”

“Good. You’ll be at training tomorrow, right? Because your DSes are ready to castrate me.”

“Yeah, Dad, fuck. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll just be a little late. Bring the bikes. I don’t have any with me.”

“Okay,” Adrie ascertains. “I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow, then.”

Mathieu hangs up. He does not want to go.

* * *

“They’ll let me out next week,” Wout tells him, pushing eggs around the edges of a hospital tray. “Then it’s PT. Physio. Rehab.”

“When do you start walking?” Mathieu asks.

“This afternoon. We start trying, I mean.”

“Are you nervous?”

Wout laughs. “I wasn’t nervous when I learned the first time, why should I be nervous now?”

Mathieu likes seeing him in such good spirits.

“Wish I could stick around,” he comments, trying not to sound sentimental.

“Trust me, you don’t want to see me fall on my ass,” Wout replies through bites of food. “I’d never recover from the embarrassment.”

“Hm,” Mathieu hums. He can feel his defense systems coming back online after the past week’s vulnerability.

“It was nice of you to come,” Wout says after a while. “I didn’t expect it.”

“You would have done the same for me,” Mathieu offers, realizing as he says it that it’s the absolute truth. Wout would've never hesitated to come if it were Mathieu in the hospital. Mathieu feels bad about hesitating.

“I liked all those stories.”

“Thanks. I’ve got a lot of them.” The tone is chilly. Cool and modulated.

 _Things are disintegrating again,_ Wout thinks _. Back to normal. Oh, well. It was nice when it lasted.  
_

A sip of coffee to try and dispel the awkwardness. “So, uh, big race coming up?”

“In a few weeks. Training camp for the other half of the season starts today.”

“Well, uh, I guess you gotta go, huh?” Their eyes are locked in a search for the others intentions.

Deadpan. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Thanks, Mathieu,” Wout murmurs, looking away. “I mean it, really.”

Mathieu cocks an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For visiting me for so long. I’m glad you came.”

Mathieu's chest tightens.

“Sure,” he mutters, getting up from the chair. He gives Wout an uncertain stare. “Feel better.”

“Yeah,” Wout sighs. “Good luck out there. Not that you need it.”

“Hm,” Mathieu hums in acknowledgement, turning towards the door. “Okay, well. See ya, Wout.”

“Sure. Bye, Mathieu.”

A nod, a wave.

Wout watches Mathieu leave, and when he’s gone, the room feels like what it is: empty and cold.


	3. dullness

Wout, confined to crutches, spends his days in the guest bedroom downstairs lying in bed until it’s time for physical therapy. It’s agony, learning how to walk again – being so weak after being so strong – but Wout perseveres, does so because he knows that afterwards, there will be painkillers to numb the boredom and pain for a few hours. He looks forward to them, pops two in his mouth with a glass of water and tunes into whatever cycling is on that day, watching the colorful jerseys spill out onto asphalt with dilated pupils.

It’s kind of a dry season, in between the Tour and the Vuelta, but there are still races on. Wout doesn’t have the energy to care one way or another who wins whatever National Championship. He can’t even keep track of who’s who in the peloton – the numbers all blur together and he falls asleep during the commercial breaks. But it’s something to do.

Sometimes his wife Sarah will come and join him, bring him dinner, chat with him, and he’s thankful for her company, for the softness of her hand in his. However, she still works during the day and aside from the physical therapist and the occasional visit from his parents, Wout doesn’t see much of anybody. His DSes will call him up every so often, check in on his progress, but at the moment, they still have a team to run. Sometimes his teammates will call, too – Gesink checks in weekly, even Roglič gave him a ring once – but most of his time is spent laying around in a twin-sized bed in the guest bedroom feeling nothing but pain and anxiety. He tries everything, tries to read, tries to watch television, but he doesn’t have the motivation to make it past the first chapter or episode of anything. Mostly, he just wants to sleep until he’s better, misses the tranquilizers they gave him in the hospital. Wout finds himself wishing he could enter a coma and come out of it healed, like a character in a soap opera.

His life passes by in a series of endless days confined to the first story of his house. At some point he draws the curtains in the bedroom and soon there’s not much to tell day from night. He sleeps just to sleep, tries to remain positive, but the healing process is a long one, one that has to be done right lest there be repercussions. Much attention is paid to his diet and his physiotherapy, with checklists scattered in the kitchen, the bedroom, the makeshift gym set up in the living room.

Soon you’ll get on the bike again, they promise him each week, telling him he’s making great progress. Wout doesn’t feel like he’s making progress. He feels like he’s existing in a body that’s foreign to him, that’s slow when he wants to be fast, that’s clumsy when he expects finesse, that struggles with stairs and lifting things and running. He hates it. He’s lonely and listless and bored to tears. Outside is a foreigner to him. He makes it down the street for a block or so before he’s afraid he’ll fall with no one to help him up, so he hobbles on his crutches back home again, climbs into bed, wishes they weren’t weaning him off the painkillers quite so quickly.

It’s been two weeks. It’s been a lifetime.

* * *

A phone call on a day he’s not expecting one. Wout’s roused from sleep. Who is calling him in the middle of the night, he wonders, but when he retrieves his phone, the time reads three in the afternoon. He’s so frazzled he doesn’t even check who it is before answering.

“Yeah,” he says, gruffly.

“Hey,” comes the voice from the other end of the line, cool and neutral. He’d recognize it anywhere.

“Mathieu?” Wout’s surprised but touched by the gesture. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I’m in Norway. The race starts tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Wout doesn’t know what to say. “How’s it going over there?”

“Cold and rainy. Nice, though, I guess. Gives me an advantage.”

“You going for GC?”

“Points,” Mathieu answers. “I’ve got Tour of Britain after this and that’s better suited to me.”

“Sounds fun,” Wout comments absently. Things are awkward between them. Wout doesn’t know why Mathieu called him to make painful small talk. The line goes silent.

“How are you?” Mathieu asks, his voice quiet and small. “I’ve been wondering.”

Wout sighs. “Do you want the truth?”

“Obviously.”

“I’m bored to tears, stuck in my house, sleeping alone because I can’t make it up the stairs yet. I see the PT four times a week, get stoned on painkillers and watch cycling. All I want to do is sleep.” Wout is not sure why he’s telling Mathieu this. Perhaps it’s because Mathieu’s already seen him at his weakest.

“Jesus Christ, Wout.”

“Yeah.”

“Look, uh, I’m busy for a couple of weeks but I’ll be back in Belgium at the end of the month, and –“

Another sigh. “Mathieu, you don’t have to. I’m fine, really.”

“I’m not doing it out of pity,” Mathieu scowls. “Either you get better or I have a really fucking boring cyclocross season.”

"Okay, okay." A laugh, hearty and warm. "I guess I’ll just have to watch you on TV until then.”

Mathieu’s voice is serious. “I’m gonna win that Tour, Wout.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Wout replies. He doesn’t. The race is the perfect length and parcours for Mathieu. Wout wishes he could race against him, feels that familiar fire in his belly and ache in his legs, and he's thankful for the feeling, one he hasn't experienced in quite some time. 

“So, uh, when do you go back on the bike?”

“They say two weeks.”

Mathieu smiles into the phone. “Perfect timing.”

Wout hears the sound of the front door opening. “Sarah’s home,” he says. “I gotta go.”

“Okay,” Mathieu tells him, stifling a sigh. “Feel better.”

 _I know,_ Wout thinks, _I don't want this conversation to end either._ But it has to end, and it does.

“Thanks, I will. And thanks for calling, really. I’m bored out of my mind.”

Mathieu’s audibly unsure how to respond. “Sure. No problem.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

_Click._

* * *

Wout’s asleep when the doorbell rings. Sarah’s the one who answers it. She’s visibly displeased at the sight of Mathieu van der Poel, a man who has caused her husband quite a bit of strife, on her doorstep wearing chinos and a turtleneck, holding what looks to be a rumpled piece of cloth.

“Is Wout home?” Mathieu’s polite as always in that cool, detached way of his. Sarah hates it.

A frown. “He is.”

“I, uh, told him I was coming to visit.”

The folding of arms. Sarah is intensely protective of Wout in his current state. She’s spent almost a month fending off the Belgian sports media who have been practically camping outside of their house since the day Wout returned from France.

“He didn’t say anything to me about it.”

 _Maybe he’s got his own life outside of you_ , Mathieu thinks but stops himself from saying it. A sigh.

“Look, can you just tell him I’m here? Whether he wants to see me is up to him.” _Not you._

“Fine,” she concedes, letting him in. “I’m surprised there aren’t any cameras with you. It’d make such a nice story for _Wielerflits._ ”

Mathieu deftly chooses not to respond to that. His eyes wander around the handsome, modern décor of Wout’s living room, some of which has been moved out of the way to allow space for a set of kettle-bells, dumbbells and a workout mat. He watches Sarah approach a closed door, knocking tentatively before cracking it.

“Wout?”

Wout’s startled from his dreamless, drug-induced sleep. After gathering his bearings, he rubs his face. On the television, an old race plays.

“Hm?”

“Someone’s here to see you. Do you want visitors? I can tell him to leave.”

Wout furrows his brow. “Who?”

A scowl. “Van der Poel is in our living room.”

“Oh?” Wout yawns, stretching. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. “Yeah, send him in.”

Concern. “Are you sure?”

A scoff. “Jesus, Sarah, he’s not gonna poison me.”

“It’s unnecessary stress in your life,” she comments. “The doctor said to avoid that.”

Wout smiles at her. “It’s not stressful. Mathieu and I have known each other for years. I’d do the same if he were in my situation.”

A tentative smile back. “Okay. If you say so.”

Wout winks at her and that softens her right up, puts a blush on her cheeks. She opens the door wider, and Mathieu, who’s been pretending not to listen, approaches.

“Go ahead,” she murmurs. Mathieu, feeling quite victorious, steps into the guest room and, to Sarah’s chagrin, closes the door behind him.

“I got you something.”

Wout cocks an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Mathieu reveals the jersey he’s been holding for quite some time now with a big grin.

Laughter. “Bastard.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure what size you were,” Mathieu confesses as Wout takes it from him, stroking the silky smooth Lycra. _Tour of Britain_.

“Is this the actual one?” Wout has to admit he’s touched by the gesture.

“No way. That one’s framed in my living room.”

“Congrats, Mathieu. Helluva race. Though, I thought you were gonna eat it in that time trial.”

Mathieu rolls his eyes. “Have a little faith, huh?”

 _This is nice_ , Wout thinks. _This Mathieu._

A friendly silence. Mathieu sits next to Wout on the edge of the bed, making sure to maintain a polite distance.

“How’re things?”

“I almost fell off the rollers yesterday,” Wout confesses, choosing honesty. “But I did manage to make it up the stairs and back, which means I’ll finally get to sleep in my own bed again soon.”

Nervously. “And the painkillers?”

A sigh. “Slowly but surely.”

“Are you worried?” 

Confusion. “About what?”

“The painkillers. Getting off them.”

A shrug. “I’d be lying if I told you I won’t miss them.”

“Wout…”

“At least when you’re on painkillers shit is less boring and sleep comes easily. It’s hard to sleep when you lay in bed all day doing fuck all.”

Mathieu doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Sorry.” It’s all he can manage.

A hesitant smile. “I’ll be fine. Might even make it back in form in time for the end of the World Cup series. If I work hard, that is.”

“Oh, really?” Mathieu can’t hide the grin twitching at the corner of his lips.

“I mean, my hopes aren’t that high. I can’t tell what stuff they’re telling me because it’s true and what stuff they’re telling me just to keep me motivated.”

Slightly deflated. “Yeah, fuck.”

“Jumbo doesn’t want me riding cross at all, but I managed to convince them to let me for the back end of the season just to get in shape before the classics next year.”

“You going to the Tour?”

“Got no choice,” Wout sighs. “I gotta pay my debts to do what I want. Still, there are a few sprint stages I think I could win.”

“Grande Colombier, though,” Mathieu teases. “Have fun.”

“I won’t, I’ll tell you that right now.”

“It’s fucked that they make you haul Kruijswijk and Roglič up mountains, if you ask me.”

Wout smiles weakly. “We can’t all have our teams built around just us.”

“If you think I’m going to feel sorry for you for being on one of the best cycling teams in the world, you’re wrong. Fucking Primož Roglič is up in Spain right now winning the Vuelta.”

“And I watch him on TV waiting for my bum leg to heal.”

Mathieu’s curious. “Why’s it taking so long, anyways? You didn’t break anything.”

“Cut through a pretty major vein. If it doesn’t heal right, there’s blood flow issues and shit.”

Mathieu shudders at the mental image. “Jesus.”

“If I can make it on the rollers, they’ll let me ride outside soon, though.”

Mathieu offers before he can even second guess himself.

“Hey, look, I’m still in Kapellen during the off season. I’m happy to drive down here if you want some company. Or, I guess some motivation.”

“Spying on my progress are we?” Wout teases. Mathieu takes it the wrong way.

“What? No. I, uh,” He’s embarrassed. “Forget it.”

A hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, no, I was just kidding.” A sigh. Wout’s voice is quiet and sincere. “I’d enjoy that. I mean it. To tell you the truth, I’ve been lonely as hell.”

The hand is gone just as quickly as it came. Mathieu realizes this is one of the only times Wout’s ever touched him outside of handshakes and fraternal hugs. Something about it feels poignant, and the thought of Wout’s isolation makes Mathieu queasy.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “About the loneliness.”

“When you’re a bike racer and you get injured, bike racing goes on without you. It’s nobody’s fault.”

“What about Sarah?” Mathieu finds himself asking.

A shrug. “She works. Pays the bills.”

“Really? She works?”

“At a non-profit, yeah. Why? Doesn’t Roxane work?”

Mathieu rolls his eyes. “If you can call it that. She just, like, posts on Instagram. I mean, I’m not one to talk. I’m glued to fucking video games all day when I’m not racing. Besides, they send her to, like, Cancun and shit to post about soap. It’s a pretty sweet gig.”

“Huh. No kidding.”

A thought occurs to Wout, something that ties their time in the hospital to their time together now, this time they’ve carved out from their public lives in which they've become close in this strange, reticent way.

“How’s your grandfather, Mathieu?”

Mathieu looks at Wout with pained eyes. The question catches him off guard.

“Not great,” he answers quietly. “He’s really not doing well.”

“I’m sorry,” Wout says, his voice tender and sincere. The hand returns to Mathieu’s shoulder and Mathieu, not used to being touched, shivers against it.

“Thanks. It’s been hard.”

Wout sighs. “Look, I know we’re not really friends, but if you need someone to talk to…”

“That’s nice of you.”

Wout’s hand is warm, and his thumb brushes circles along Mathieu’s shoulder for a few seconds before the touch is gone. A knock on the door.

“Yeah,” Wout calls out. Sarah pops her head in.

“Dinner’s ready soon.” She looks disapprovingly at Mathieu. “Mathieu, of course you’re invited if you want to stay.” It’s the kind of invitation that’s intended to be declined. Mathieu reads her loud and clear.

“I should really go,” he murmurs. “It’s good to see you looking better, Wout.”

“Thanks for the visit,” Wout replies coolly, diffusing the earlier emotion from the room. “It was nice to catch up.”

Mathieu stands. “Let me know about that ride.”

“Will do.”

When Wout glances up at Mathieu and meets his gaze, Mathieu’s eyes search Wout’s as though to say, _Do you really want me to go?_ Wout thinks he’s imagining this. He’s not. He doesn’t want Mathieu to go, either. He’s desperate for company, has been alone for weeks, wants to get closer to this chilly, distant, enigmatic rival of his, wants to understand him. The door’s been shut on the conversation, the connection severed, and Mathieu’s gaze is gone with a blink. They’re back to their usual selves.

“Anyways,” Mathieu mutters awkwardly. 

“Yeah. See you around. Congrats again on the Tour, by the way.”

A slight smile. “Thanks. It was easy.”

Wout laughs a hearty laugh. “Get out of here.”

Mathieu waves, walks out of the room, Sarah closing the door behind him. He doesn’t need her to show him the way out. He meanders down the front stairs, gets back in his car, sits in the driver's seat, and starts the ignition.

Only when compared to the rhythmic dinging of the seat belt sensor, does Mathieu realize his heart is pounding.


	4. campfire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i truly love making wout and mathieu go in the woods to have A Moment. this is a cliche i will never abandon. also yeah this chapter is extremely long sorry.

“Knee’s too low.”

“Fuck.”

 _Brrrr_ of the back wheel, the muffled sound of cleats hitting soft dirt. The field they’re in is expansive, the grass fading from green to pale wheat save for the deep, muddy ruts left by the bike tires of innumerable cyclocross enthusiasts. They start the riding here, where it’s flat, where the tires can get snagged so easily one must force one’s way through everything by means of sheer endurance.

Mathieu turns around, unclips, leans against his top tube, leg warmers covered in filth. His breath is starting to show in the chilly October air and he pulls his neck gaiter up around his chin to keep warm. A shiver. The sky hangs low and ragged around them - it's the kind of sky that produces neither rain nor snow but threatens to.

Wout rides past Mathieu, fast but unsteady. Still, even in this, Mathieu can see glimpses of the rider he once knew and still fears, can still see the sheer power in each pedal stroke, the basis upon which everything else can be rebuilt with time.

Wout throws his leg over the back of the bike, his cleat striking the ground, the other untwisting from its clip smoothly, fluidly, all blending into a running start. Panting is audible. They’ve been out here for hours, just as they were last week and the week before and the week before that. Both cherish each ride, neither admitting this.

“Better,” Mathieu calls out. “Smoother that time.”

Wout rolls around and arrives back at Mathieu’s side, stops, unclips.

He used to hate doing this. The thought of Mathieu seeing him riding with such rusty clumsiness repulsed Wout, but in the end, he was eager to get back on the bike and, lonely from his isolation at home, he found Mathieu’s presence to be more enjoyable and motivating than his coaches’.

At the end of their sessions, freed from the watchful gazes of other people just as they were in that French hospital room, they talk - talk about life, about sport, about relationships, sometimes for hours. This is something Wout enjoys immensely, something that feels like a privilege, a glimpse into the mystery that is Mathieu van der Poel. Mathieu's never experienced a friendship so easily slipped into. When he is with Wout, he doesn't have to explain himself so much.

“It’s amazing how much your body forgets when you’re out for a few months,” Wout complains, embarrassed. Mathieu shrugs.

“It’s amazing how much your body remembers, too.”

Nothing surrounds them for miles, the landscape stretching all the way to the edge of the horizon, punctuated only by a few leafless trees. They are completely alone save for the passing of an occasional car. The solitude weighs on them in these moments, as though they are existing in some otherworldly, dreamlike plane rather than standing in fallow field in Belgium. Purgatory, Mathieu thinks.

The sight of breath spilling into the approaching evening.

“Getting cold?” Wout asks, taking off his helmet.

“A little, yeah,” Mathieu admits. He does not want to go home.

His time with Wout is an escape from everything else going on in his life, specifically the failing health of his grandfather, and he knows this time is precious, knows that when Wout’s back up to form, these afternoons will cease to be, this anxious but fulfilling friendship concluded. The longer they continue like this, the more difficult the inevitability of its ending seems.

* * *

The bond that has been forged between them over the past few months is a strange one. It's a companionship born of total, mutual understanding offered only to those souls who live in parallel.

Wout already felt close to Mathieu, tied to him by means of their shared talent and passion for a sport that both brutalizes them and makes them feel alive. The simple closeness of talking, of hanging out, of being alone adds another dimension, makes Mathieu more real to Wout, more tangible and human.

It helps that Wout also quite likes Mathieu, despite his frostiness; quite likes the way he bursts into childish, embarrassed laughter; the way he is so frank and honest about his views on things; the way he walks about the world with total, unwavering confidence. Deep beneath that cold, arrogant exterior exists a man who is remarkably generous, but unlike many men, Mathieu wants his generosity to go unnoticed. It's an act between two people, for no one else to see.

Mathieu, for his part, simply finds Wout to be a good person to talk to, enjoys his open and easygoing nature, his normalcy. Wout is kind. He’s never manipulative, never insincere. He is only ever himself, and in this, Mathieu envies him.

Still, like all friendship between men – especially between men of their caliber and notoriety – theirs is guarded and restrained. Why such friendships are this way, Mathieu isn’t entirely sure. He remembers his father’s friends coming over to the house, playing cards at dinner, laughing and drinking, telling stories, consoling one another, but beneath it all there always seemed to be some kind of distance, some kind of boundary never crossed, a boundary that does not exist in friendships with and between women. Sure, there is vulnerability, but it is rare and fleeting, always answered by a round of, “hey, it’s okay, man.”

When he is with Wout, Mathieu resents these boundaries. He finds himself missing the times they spent together in the hospital, times when Wout was already weak - at his weakest, in fact - and therefore had nothing to hide, and by allowing Mathieu to see him like this, Mathieu was invited to be weak as well.

Maybe it's all the time Mathieu's had to spend in hospitals lately, but when he recalls certain scenes from that week in France, be finds himself becoming strangely emotional.

“I had a dream where I couldn’t move. I thought I wasn’t gonna get up,” Wout had told him, panicked, drugged, and in great pain, and Mathieu thinks about how he responded by comforting Wout, by fixing his blanket, draping it over him, and when he did this, he felt as though he could have cried. Sure, the preceding events were frightening to behold, but it was the moment after, this singular instance of absolute transparency, of trust, which sticks with Mathieu as the only time in his life where he can remember such genuine, unreserved care within the context of friendship. He remembers sitting in that ugly armchair, telling Wout all his stories, telling him everything, for reasons neither entirely understood, and Wout, although fucked up on drugs and half-conscious, listened, really listened in a way that showed he enjoyed Mathieu’s company.

Now that Wout is on the bike again, the distance, the protectiveness, the wariness from before that week is back, and Mathieu hates this. There’s an imbalance now. Mathieu, exhausted from his trips to France to see his ailing grandfather - to watch a man die - is weak, and Wout, who is recovering from his injury at a remarkable pace, is strong. During that week in the hospital, both bared their weaknesses – Wout’s physical, Mathieu’s emotional.

As he observes Wout fiddling with his bike computer, Mathieu wants things to be like that again.

* * *

“Mathieu?”

Mathieu’s startled from his thoughts.

“Yeah.”

“Are you ready?”

Mathieu, reflecting on his train of thought, decides to take a chance – to be honest.

“Not really,” he says. Wout cocks an eyebrow.

“You wanna do a couple more rounds?”

“No, it’s not that,” Mathieu answers, looking away. “I’m just not ready to go home yet.”

A look of concern. “Something wrong?”

Again, honesty. Mathieu’s face softens, but he’s still guarded in precisely the way he doesn’t want Wout to be.

“I, uh, kind of just wanted to talk, you know? Shoot the shit some more.”

Wout, visibly confused but also quite happy with this turn of events, gives Mathieu a slight smile.

“Uh, sure,” he murmurs, swinging his leg over his bike before dismounting and shouldering it. “Can we talk where it’s warm, though?”

Mathieu nods, makes a sound of affirmation. His palms seem especially clammy under his gloves.

They walk their bikes to the car, rack them, and get inside, the incessant dinging of the seatbelt sensors rings in their ears when Wout turns the key in the ignition. The heat roars in the small interior, fogging the windows. They buckle their seatbelts just to shut the sound off, the vibration of the engine rumbling beneath them.

“Do you, uh, wanna go somewhere?” Wout asks, reaching over to turn on the anti-fog. “We can go back to my place, if you want.”

Mathieu doesn’t know how to delicately say that he has a visceral dislike for Wout’s wife and she for him.

“Uh, maybe somewhere else? I don’t want to be a burden on Sarah.”

Wout, who is quite good at reading people, reads Mathieu loud and clear.

“Sure. Can we drop the bikes off, though? Maybe change out of these clothes?” Wout looks down at his mud-caked shins.

Mathieu chuckles. “Of course.”

They drive back in silence to Wout’s house and do exactly that, put the bikes in the garage and change, rejoining on the front porch. As they get back in the car, the routine of travel begins again.

Mathieu enjoys being alone with Wout like this. 

“Where to?” Wout inquires. “We could go to a bar.”

“I don’t like being recognized in public,” Mathieu confesses. “What if we just, like, got a six pack and drove around until we found someplace?"

Wout laughs. “Sounds good to me. Hold on, I’ve got a fresh one in the fridge. Saves me some money.”

"Huh. Good idea."

In the time Wout’s gone fetching the beer, Mathieu wonders why he’s so nervous all of a sudden. Something about this feels unsettling, wrong. Maybe there’s a reason why men’s friendships are the way they are. Maybe some boundaries aren’t meant to be pushed, but as to what exactly those boundaries are, Mathieu can’t say. All he knows is that when he is with Wout, all other relationships seem lonely and incomplete in comparison. He dwells on whether it's possible to tell Wout this, but his dwelling is disrupted by the opening of the door.

Wout slides in the drivers’ seat, closes the car door and hands the six pack to Mathieu. Wordlessly, they pull out of the driveway.

* * *

They travel to a nearby trail, deserted save for the lights above the parking lot which flicker on as afternoon descends into dusk.

“There’s a spot with a fire pit off the trail,” Wout explains. “I’ve got some wood and lint and a lighter in the back, if you don’t mind carrying it. I’ll bring a blanket, too.”

“Sure,” Mathieu agrees, the sinking feeling still in his stomach.

They head out onto the trail, the last of the early autumn leaves clinging on for dear life to the tips of branches, faded and ragged, their November companions just now revealing the bright colors of entropy. The only sound is of footsteps crunching fine gravel. The birds have already settled in for the night, leaving the pair in a strange silence. After a few turns, they come to a clearing, a metal fire pit in its center.

“People were already setting campfires here,” Wout explains. “The park just decided to make it less dangerous.”

Mathieu says nothing, dumps the firewood into the metal basin with a clang. Wout sets the beer and blanket down, takes the lint from Mathieu’s hand, sets it atop the kindling and lights it, and soon, their faces are illuminated by a budding warmth. Wout blows on the fire, stoking it, and when he’s satisfied, he retrieves the moving blanket and shakes it out, draping it over the ground. The pair sit atop it, crack open their beers, and for some time say nothing. Mathieu feels like a teenager again, a sentiment his companion shares. It seems silly and juvenile to hide in the woods drinking on a Sunday by a campfire when you’re grown up and famous, and in Wout’s case, married. And yet, that's precisely what they choose to do.

It is a wonderful moment.

* * *

“What did you want to talk about?” Wout asks gently, the last vestiges of daylight disappearing through the mottled branches of the trees.

Mathieu knows, has known, what he wants to talk to Wout about, as well as why he wants to talk about it in the first place – it bridges the connection between the hospital and now, and also, it's killing him. If he doesn’t talk about it to Wout, Mathieu will bury it deep inside where it’ll creep back up and force sadness upon him when he’s lying in bed at night trying not to wake Roxane up. He can picture the cutesy, performative sympathy now, her knitted eyebrows as she’d tell him, _Oh, baby, I’m so sorry._ Like a squeaky toy.

Now it's just a matter of working up the courage. After finishing his first beer, Mathieu, a little dizzy from the alcohol and the exercise, manages to bring up that which he has kept buried inside of him for quite a while.

“My grandfather is dying,” he says, his elbows draped across his knees. It’s the first time Mathieu’s really come to terms with this fact, something he’d realized long ago but hadn’t really accepted. To hear the words leave his own mouth makes them real, makes everything real. Already, Mathieu's on the brink of tears, his breathing ragged. A hand on his shoulder.

“Mathieu, I can’t possibly imagine how you feel right now. I know he meant so much to you.”

This is real empathy, Mathieu thinks. None of that _I’m sorry for your loss_ bullshit. _This is why I wanted to talk to you about it._

“Nobody I’ve loved has died before,” Mathieu observes, the flicker of the campfire dancing in the pupils of his blue eyes. “I’m lucky that way, I guess.”

“I had a grandparent die when I was a kid,” Wout offers. “I couldn’t understand it. I got down on my bedroom floor and cried and tried to reconcile that she – my nana – wasn’t coming back and I couldn’t do it. My mother told me she was in a better place, but that didn’t help either. It was just something I had to come to terms with over time.”

“Sorry,” Mathieu murmurs not knowing what else to say.

“It was a long time ago. I guess I’m just trying to say I don’t know how to deal with grief either.” 

“You’re the only person outside of my family I’ve talked to about this,” Mathieu admits, trying (and failing) to keep it together. “When you were in the hospital, it reminded me of when he first started having heart problems, what it felt like to see someone so strong in such a bad state, you know? And now, I’m going to France as much as I can just to see him before he’s gone, but he’s barely there – he can’t really talk or move around after the stroke." Mathieu's voice catches in his throat. "His heart’s just, like, giving out.”

Wout wraps his arm around Mathieu’s shoulder. Feeling, in the moment, that he's allowed to cry, hot tears roll down Mathieu's cheeks as he remembers the last time he visited his grandfather - once one of the most beloved, famous cyclists in history - and saw him hooked up to a ventilator, his chest moving just to move, the most basic gesture of being alive. Wout gives Mathieu a comforting squeeze and Mathieu sinks into the touch, which seems so real, so honest, so devoid of self-consciousness.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he confesses, his breath shaky. “We’re not friends, I know, and I hate that you have to see me like this. I’m so embarrassed crying like this, but, fuck, I don’t…”

“It's alright, Mathieu, really,” Wout reassures him. “Look, you saw me at my weakest, too, you know? I was barely lucid, totally fucked up. I had to piss through a tube because I couldn’t walk." A sigh. "We’re even now, yeah? And we _are_ friends, I think. At this point.”

“Yeah, but we can’t really be, can we?” Mathieu protests weakly. “Not close friends, anyway. We’re gonna go back to the way things were after you get better, and then that’s it. I don’t want to hear you promise otherwise, because we both know that’s how it’s gotta be.”

A sigh. “I know.”

It’s true. The first races are already happening.

"Still," Wout continues, his voice gentle, "We're friends right now."

Mathieu nods soundlessly. For a long while, Wout lets his friend grieve, and as the sun is replaced with dull, suburban night, they speak among themselves in low voices about death and life and what comes after, about weakness and strength, about beginnings and endings. In the chilliness of autumn's apex, Mathieu and Wout are warmed by the fire, the beer, and the presence of one another, the world stopping where the fire's halo dissolves into darkness.

* * *

“Can I tell you something?” Mathieu isn’t sure why he feels the need to ask permission.

“Of course,” Wout replies, stroking Mathieu’s shoulder. Mathieu’s voice comes out hoarse from the evening's tears.

“Ever since I visited you in the hospital, I’ve been thinking a lot about, like, relationships and stuff. Friendship, especially. I’m not sure how to talk about this, but when I visited you, there was something about it that made me realize I don’t know anyone at all, and that they don’t know me, either.”

 _What a thing to say._ Wout furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Mathieu admits. “You were, like, all weak and fucked up and on drugs and to be honest, it scared the shit out of me. Like, I watched you sleep because I was afraid they’d given you too big a dose and that you weren’t going to wake up, and, Jesus, It really upset me to see you like that, you know? Because I know better than anyone how strong you are, how dangerous and powerful you can be on the bike." Quieter now: "I don’t know why I stayed so long, either - why I kept coming back. I guess it made me sad that no one was there with – “

"No, no," Wout cuts him off to explain. "People _were_ with me before, but honestly they drove me fucking insane – Sarah included - so I sent them away. I didn’t want anyone to see me like that, for obvious reasons, but also everyone who _did_ see me like that either panicked or treated me like I was a fucking child. It was maddening, like, seriously. I’d rather be alone than be talked to like that."

"Yeah, jeez."

"Like, I told you up front, the day you came, Mathieu, that I didn’t want you to pity me. And unlike the others, you listened. You respected me, even though I was all fucked up. That meant a lot to me. Really.”

Mathieu can’t look at Wout. He continues trying to work out what it he’s been trying to say.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want to be pitied either, you know? I think that was a part of it for me, too. Like, we saw each other for who we were without the pressure of everyone, of everything else. Even though I’ve known you since I was a kid, I always kept my distance because in ‘cross, in cycling, friendship is distracting. But that week was different. " He pauses to wash the dryness in his mouth down his throat with a swig of beer, his third. 

"Like, I’ve got friends, obviously, but that brings me back to what I was trying to say before. What went on between us in the hospital - when you were out of your mind on painkillers and all I could do was watch you suffer - it forced me to be kind in ways I haven’t been in a while, I admit."

"Like how?"

"Selfless, I guess, because I liked reading the magazines and telling you all those stories, even though you weren’t all there. I felt like, because I saw you when you were like that - defenseless - I could just be myself with nothing to lose. And all this has got me thinking about all my other friendships, too." He turns towards Wout. "Like, do you know how dads are friends with other guys? How they have them over for dinner, shoot the breeze, commiserate, stuff like that?”

“Oh, definitely,” Wout answers immediately. “Old dude friendships, where they get drunk and yell at the TV and slap each other on the back and shit. Sometimes they get serious, I guess, but…yeah, I think I see where you’re going with this.”

The fire pops and crackles, their beers sweating in their hands as they take intermittent sips. Seeing that Mathieu’s no longer crying - hasn't been for some time - Wout, in a moment of self-consciousness, lets go of him, nurses his bottle with both hands, their bodies still barely touching from the close proximity, backlit by flame. Mathieu, who misses the touch but tries not to read too much into its absence, begins again.

“My father’s had so many friends in his life, but I’ve never seen them be close in the way we were close in the hospital – same with my other friendships. Like, me and my other friends, we’d talk about girls sometimes and fear and shit like that, but there was always some kind of boundary we never crossed, something we were afraid of that I can't put my finger on." 

"Like what?" Wout asks, curious to see where this goes.

"Take women, for example," Mathieu offers. "We’d only talk about women when one of us found a new one or went through a breakup, and then it’s always about how, like, she’s so great, or she’s so bad, but never really about how we felt, and if we did talk about how we felt, we always had our guard up, you know? You can’t say with any sincerity, ‘I’m in love, I’m really in love,’ or something like that. It’s always, bro-ey stuff like, ‘I’m, like, _mad_ in love with her, man.’”

A pause, a long drink from the bottle. Wout waits, gives his companion his full attention, intrigued by what he’s saying. He considers the implication the words have for his own life, his own friendships.

“But then,” Mathieu continues, “When I saw you in the hospital - when I saw you genuinely afraid when you woke up from that dream, you told me, 'I had this dream where I couldn’t move,' and when you said it you were in such pain and so fearful - I had no time to put my guard up, no time to go to that place we all go to when we talk to each other. All I could do was cover you with the blanket and wait for you to go to sleep. I can't explain what that moment did to me. It made me feel like I had discovered something missing in my life, made everything feel more real."

"For me too, Mathieu," Wout interjects. "I barely remember it, but I was so scared, man, like, I had this night terror like someone was sitting on my chest, and then I reopened part of the wound trying to get up out of the bed and fuck, it was terrible. It hurt so bad and I was still on the drugs and couldn't really process anything. I remember my mouth saying things to the nurse about sleepwalking, and then she hit me with the painkillers again and that just made it worse because I already could barely move from what the dream did to me, not to mention the pain. I didn't see you until you got up from the chair and then suddenly you were there, and I recognized you, and even though I could barely talk I was so messed up, I told you about the dream because I felt like I had to explain what was happening, if only to myself. I was so, so fucked, and when you covered me with the blanket I felt so relieved, like, it gave me permission to go to sleep again knowing that I wasn't alone in that room."

Hearing this story from Wout's perspective makes Mathieu's heart ache.

"Jesus fuck," he mutters. 

"Yeah."

"After you went back to sleep, I was so stressed out, I cried," Mathieu confesses. "It was so shocking, the way it happened. Like, you were sleeping one moment, and then, chaos. That's when it hit me that things were really bad, that you weren't just resting in bed, you know? You were going through it, big time." 

"That's a polite way of putting it," Wout murmurs, chuckling into his bottle.

"That's why," Mathieu explains, "The next day, I brought the magazine and read to you. And once I ran out of magazine, I told you all of my best stories. I found that I loved doing that, too. Talking freely, being listened to. In that room there was just us, you know? No cameras, no expectations, nobody else. Just us, both weak in our own ways, both going through our own shit."

"Yeah," Wout says, his eyes fixed on the fire, a slight smile curling at the corner of his lips.

"After that week was over," Mathieu continues, his voice quieter, more reserved. "I realized I’d never experienced anything like that before, that closeness, that honesty. I don't know if it was the shared trauma or what, but everyone else, save for my family, felt like a stranger to me in comparison. I’d hang out with my other friends and realize I just couldn’t be that way with them, despite having known them for years and years.”

"When I was home alone," Wout says, his thumb picking at the peeling brewery label, "I really missed those days too. My old friends came to see me, and they'd either try and pretend that I wasn't obviously fucked up or they'd just treat me with kid gloves being like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, you know? I felt the same way as you - like, these people don't know me. Hell, they don't even know how to be _around_ me when I'm not my normal self. It's like talking to a brick wall."

"Uh-huh, yep," Mathieu affirms, nodding furiously. "Also, I guess what I’m trying to say with this whole conversation is that I’m _sad_ that things have to be like this, in friendships. Like, I don’t know why they’re like that."

"Yeah," Wout shrugs. "Me either."

"Maybe," Mathieu ponders, "We’re afraid to show too much of ourselves. Shit, maybe we all just don’t want to come off as gay. I don’t know, I don’t know. But what happened that week made me feel free in a way I can’t explain."

"Same here."

"And," Mathieu continues, not wanting to lose the momentum driving _why_ he's talking about this in the first place; "As you got better, especially after you started riding again, I feel like things changed."

Wout furrows his brow. "In what way?"

"It's just that..." A sigh.

"What?"

"Now it's starting to feel more and more like all those other relationships, and, like, _fuck_ , Wout - if we’re only going to be close for a short period of time, I guess..." Mathieu gathers his resolve, tries to find the right words to ask for what he desperately wants. "I guess I just want to be close like we were in France. Like we’re close right now.”

Silence.

Wout nods slowly, considers the conversation, considers the words, considers their heaviness. It’s a lot to take in. The campfire is warm against their shins and the hands holding their bodies to them. For a moment, the pair share a contemplative quietude, Mathieu visibly nervous that he’s overshared. Seeing this, Wout speaks.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I was thinking. I think you’re right, too, about a lot of stuff."

"Mm," Mathieu acknowledges.

Wout steadies himself, gathers his thoughts.

"It's like I said before, right? When I was in the hospital, I was thankful for your company, really. I liked how you were so open with me, how you showed a side of you I’d frankly never seen before. I kept thinking the whole week, even though I was on drugs, like, I’m really gonna miss this. This Mathieu. If I knew you were like that deep down, I would have made an effort to be your friend a lot earlier, I guess." A grin.

Mathieu smiles into his beer bottle, the words adding warmth to his cheeks.

"Surprise, surprise, Mathieu van der Poel is actually a really nice guy,” Wout teases, and Mathieu laughs.

“Kind, too,” Wout adds. “You feel a lot, tell good stories. I kept being, like, who is this and what has he done with Mathieu?”

Another chuckle.

“Anyway, you kept coming back until you couldn’t, and honestly, since we're talking about all that, I don’t know what I would have done if you didn’t come when you did," Wout confesses.

"I'm sure you would have been fine," Mathieu murmurs, trying not to show how much this affects him.

"No way. That week was honestly, the worst part of the whole thing. After the surgeries and shit, it's just endless fucking waiting, long days where you don’t do anything except lay there in pain while your body tries to heal. I was honest when I said it really meant a lot."

"Thanks," Mathieu says. "I'm glad it made you feel better. Really."

"And to your point about friendship between guys, I agree with that, too," Wout continues. "Like, when you’re friends with women, they are so real with you, are so good at feeling what you feel, at encouraging you to be vulnerable and when you walk away from a conversation like that, you feel a lot better."

"Yes, right, exactly."

"Whereas with guys, it’s like you mostly just want to be validated in some way, and that keeps you from opening up, because what if you say something really personal or revealing and your friends just stare at you and think you’re a freak? It’s a societal thing, too. Guys have to be a certain way, you know? Can’t be too weak, can’t show too much care or affection, or else you’ll be totally rejected, or worse, made fun of."

"Yeah, fuck."

"It’s actually really sad, when you think about it," Wout observes. "I think, because of all this bullshit, a lot of people go their whole lives not knowing what it’s like to be close. I mean, shit, I admit I fall into that too – I put up the same barriers as everyone else to protect myself.”

Wout takes a few sips of beer, exhales deeply, as though he'd been holding that breath in forever. Mathieu watches the contours of Wout's face, draped in shadow, as he begins to speak again.

“Also, what you said about people being afraid of being seen as gay, I think that’s true, too. I wonder sometimes if women have to deal with that, but they probably don’t, right? Like, they’re taught when they’re young that it’s okay to hug and touch and cry and tell secrets with one another. We’re taught not to do that. Out of fear, I guess, of being seen as gay, but even then, if you’re a secure person, if you’re not gay, why live in that fear? Why be afraid of gay people in the first place, in the modern times we live in?"

"It’s worse in sports, too," Mathieu adds. "Cycling’s especially bad."

"Yeah, but still," Wout protests, "If that’s what’s keeping all of us from being close to one another, that’s pretty fucking sad isn’t it?”

"Fuck," Mathieu mumbles, considering this. "Jesus."

“It's really fucking sad," Wout continues, softer and more vulnerable now. "Like, it makes _me_ sad. Fuck, man, there have been times when I’ve seen my friends get rejected, seen them get their hearts broken, or have something bad happen to them at work, and all I want to do is to hold them, to tell them it’ll be alright, and something in me keeps me from doing it, makes me afraid to." A dense pause.

"Were you afraid just now?" Mathieu asks, his voice quiet and small. "Tonight?"

"Yeah," Wout confesses, his voice heavy with some unknown emotion. "When you told me about your grandfather, I was afraid to touch you, too, but I thought that because of what happened in the hospital…” he trails off.

They look at each other, and in that moment they are two people who understand one another wholly and completely, in a way few people ever do. Faced with the intimacy of the conversation, with his existing sadness, with the overwhelming sense of being cared for by this man for whom he cares so deeply in return, a kind and honest man who accepts him as he is without question and despite their tumultuous past, Mathieu can’t stop himself from crying.

Wout extends a hand towards him, but seeing the shiver travel through Mathieu, he stops, having no way of knowing that the shiver was in anticipation.

“You can touch me,” Mathieu says quietly, staring into the fire’s white heat, watching ashes dance in the air.

Saying nothing, Wout wraps his arm around Mathieu’s shoulder once more, and, granted permission by the gesture, Mathieu's emotions overwhelm him and begins to weep, this time heavily and without restraint.

He weeps for his grandfather on his deathbed, weeps for the grief he knows will eviscerate his mother, weeps for all his wasted friendships, weeps for the self-loathing all men feel, weeps for the time he’s spent with Wout, precious and finite, ever-dwindling; weeps because the embrace Wout pulls him into makes Mathieu’s heart feel as though it’s going to collapse inside of him like a punctured balloon. He cries into Wout’s shoulder, holds Wout to him, tells him he’s sorry for being like this. Wout tells him he doesn’t need to apologize.

“Wout, I feel like I’ve known you all my life,” Mathieu stammers through his tears. Wout rubs his back soothingly.

“You have,” he says.

It is the truth.

With Mathieu tight against him, Wout’s mind wanders back to the conversation that’s just transpired, dwells on the elusive nature of closeness between men.

_Maybe we create these boundaries between us because they protect us from discovering certain things about ourselves. If we never ask those questions, we never have to learn the answers._

Wout, being a man who loves women, realizes he’s never asked those questions himself. He’s never had to - he’s never before held any man the way he is holding Mathieu now, though he admits - has admitted to Mathieu himself - that he has wanted to. Wout tries not to be afraid of the thoughts running through his head, eating away at his pulse the longer Mathieu’s in his arms.

_What if this sympathy, this longing we share isn’t about friendship? What if it never was?_


	5. warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to make this a happy ending (?) for once, since this will probably be my last long-form Mathieu and Wout fic for a little bit (though I do have a sequel to grit in the works.) 
> 
> also c/w sex

Sexuality is an interesting thing.

Sometimes, one goes one’s whole life never questioning it, never having to, and then one day, one ends up in a situation that makes questioning all but inevitable. For most people, this takes place in their early teens, maybe their early 20s at the latest - but for some, especially those who grow up having already developed their preference for one gender, the notion of coveting someone of another can be rather stunted, suppressed by conservative institutions such as religion or professional cycling.

Love works in strange ways that cannot be shoved into boxes, cannot be labeled, cannot even be explained. It shows up without warning to wreak havoc on the mind and body and other people. The metaphor of Cupid’s arrow, while trite, is not inaccurate – one is struck suddenly and then becomes intoxicated, unable to stop oneself from careening headfirst into another person in a way that reduces all consequences - ethical, moral, interpersonal, what have you - to mere background noise.

To confess and to cry and to be held by someone warm and kind in the dark after a few beers – this is a perfect catalyst for previously undiscovered, untriggered desires to bubble to the surface. Sometimes - often, even - it just takes the right person to make such things happen.

Sitting atop a raggedy moving blanket, illuminated by a half-burned campfire in the chilly October night, Mathieu and Wout find themselves in each other’s arms, Mathieu crying into Wout’s shoulder full of grief and self-pity, and Wout holding him, motionless, trying to take stock of why his heart’s beating so fast. Neither want to let go. Both feel as though they’re taking advantage of the other.

Wout finds himself reaching up to stroke Mathieu’s hair, his chest aching when his fingers run though his companion's soft, cropped blond locks. Mathieu grips Wout tighter.

All Wout can do is hold Mathieu and wait for him to stop crying. Mathieu, for his part, is also confused by what being in Wout’s arms does to him, but this is masked by other emotions. Only after he regains his composure does Mathieu begin to feel the same panic Wout feels, not least because they just had a very long conversation about their insecurities regarding male intimacy.

Mathieu raises his head from Wout’s shoulder, wipes his nose on his sleeve. His face is flushed, his blue eyes red from the burn of tears.

“Wow,” he sniffles. “Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s alright,” Wout says gently. “It’s good to cry.”

Mathieu averts his eyes. “Yeah, well.”

They sit there awkwardly trying not to look at one another. In the night, the pair say nothing, both coming to terms with what’s just transpired, both trying to figure out what it is they’re feeling, what could possibly be eluding them. When Mathieu finally musters up the courage to glance up at Wout, he finds Wout gazing back at him with caring, concerned eyes. In this moment, Mathieu knows, knows instantly. Maybe he’s always known.

“It was nice,” he says softly.

Wout’s startled. “What was nice?”

“Crying in front of someone like that. I haven’t done that since I was a kid.”

Fidgeting. “Happy to help, I guess.”

More silence, this bout longer. The pair finish their beers while listening to the crackling of the campfire.

As he watches the light flicker across Wout's face, Mathieu can sense, somewhere deep in his heart, that what he is feeling for Wout right now is reciprocated by him. He’s sure that if he doesn’t say something in this moment, things between them will go unsaid forever, and this strikes Mathieu as profoundly sad, bordering on cruel.

He starts bargaining with himself, starts justifying why he feels the need to confess - to what, he's not entirely sure. Something. Their friendship will conclude soon anyway, has to, he surmises, and if that’s sped along by honesty, by the human act of needing to know, so be it. Wout also feels this need, this sorrowful curiosity, but it's Mathieu, spurred on by emotion and its post-crying turgid haze, who acts.

Softly. “Wout.”

“Yeah?” There’s apprehension in it. Mathieu peers up at Wout, who meets his gaze with a similar urgency.

“I feel really close to you right now.”

Wout’s chest lurches at the words, which strike him as inordinately profound.

“I feel really close to you too, Mathieu,” he says, his voice weak.

An intense stare. In it, they search for recognition and find it.

“Can I ask you something?”

Wout nods. “Yeah.”

“What if..." Mathieu steels himself. "What if we’re both unsatisfied with our friendships because they don’t give us what we want?”

Wout's pupils dilate imperceptibly. _He’s thinking exactly what I was thinking._

“What is it, then?” Wout whispers, barely able to speak. “That we want?”

“I’m afraid to talk about it,” Mathieu confesses. “We just spent all this time talking about friendship, about, like, all the things we’re insecure about. And we agreed on a lot of it, too, you know?” A sigh. “Maybe I’m just not used to being so defenseless in front of another person.”

 _This can end here_ , thinks Wout, but he doesn’t want it to. The door has been opened a crack and the light of knowledge is filtering in.

“I’m not used to it either,” Wout admits. “But I like it.” Quieter: “It feels like what I’ve been missing - a connection that wasn’t quite there with other people.”

“Yeah,” Mathieu agrees. “I feel that too.”

“Like, we’ve known each other forever, you know?” Wout continues; “We’ve got the same shit going on in our lives, shit not a lot of people can relate to. The same struggles, the same goals. There’s already a lot of understanding there, even if we didn’t become friends until recently.”

“But there’s something else, too, isn’t there?” Mathieu's so quiet, he's scarcely hovering above a whisper.

“Yeah,” Wout acknowledges, trying to come up with a word to convey such a deep, ambiguous thing. He chooses one used earlier.

“Closeness, I think.”

“Closeness.” Mathieu repeats, trailing off. He looks up at Wout, and when he speaks again, his voice is reverent and vulnerable.

“I don’t feel like this with anybody else, Wout. I don't know how to describe it. It’s like...It's like I’ve come home from somewhere very far away.”

“Mathieu,” Wout breathes and, so moved by Mathieu’s words, he reaches out for him, and Mathieu accepts the embrace instantly, holds Wout close, feels Wout’s breath against his neck, runs his fingers through Wout’s hair.

“This is what I want,” Mathieu murmurs into Wout’s shoulder. “Whatever this is.”

“Yeah,” Wout whispers. “Same.”

For long, arduous minutes, they stay like that and feel everything until neither can stand it anymore.

Mathieu raises his head to look at Wout, and Wout looks back at him, his eyes almost quivering with emotion. Neither is sure who leans in first, but the soft, clumsy kiss that follows answers all of their questions. When they separate, peering at each other through half-lidded eyes, the moment is one of reckoning, of fear and awe and bewildered joy, the kinds of emotions that seize them up and make their hearts beat like rabbits. Mathieu takes Wout’s face in his hands and kisses him again, and Wout reciprocates the gesture and holds him there.

“Holy fuck,” Wout breathes, eyes fluttering shut as Mathieu moves his palms down to Wout’s broad shoulders and kisses his neck, inhaling his scent.

“Wout,” Mathieu murmurs, his thumbs toying with Wout’s jacket collar, “My heart’s beating so fast."

"Mine too."

"Like, I’m gonna die if I don’t find out now. I’m gonna regret it for the rest of my life, I know I will.”

Wout knows this to be true about himself as well.

“Yeah, but it’s only gonna make us sad,” he protests quietly.

Mathieu gazes up at him. “It was already sad.”

"Shit," Wout whispers, unable to stop himself, and they kiss again, this one gentle and apprehensive and wonderful. 

“The fire’s gonna go out,” Mathieu mumbles into Wout’s lips.

“What do you want to do, then?” Wout asks cautiously.

“I don’t know,” Mathieu admits. As the flames dwindle, the night quickly becomes too chilly to stay outside much longer.

“Do you want this to end here?”

It’s an honest, painful question. With equal honesty, Mathieu answers it.

“No,” he says.

“So, what now?”

Mathieu knows what he wants, for better or for worse. He has to see this through.

“Let’s go to Kapellen. I took the train down anyway.”

Wout nods carefully, his heart instantly committed to the idea, against the protestations of his brain. He assumes Roxane is not home.

“We’ll stop back and grab your bike.”

“Good, yeah,” Mathieu says. He looks at Wout with urgency. “Let’s go. Now.”

“Okay."

They rise quickly, as though trying their best to leave no time for backpedaling, no time for abandoning that which they’ve just set in motion. Aided by the glow of Mathieu’s cellphone flashlight, Wout kicks dirt on the fire until its out, gathers their rubbish and the blanket and, gravel crunching beneath their hurried feet, the two scramble back to the car before the cold sets in.

* * *

In the rearview mirror of the car, Mathieu sees the back wheel of his bike spin gently in the wind.

On the drive to Kapellen, the two say nothing. All Wout’s wife knows is that he’ll be drinking with Mathieu and whether or not he’ll be back tonight depends on how drunk he gets. Sarah had accepted this information with a grimace, but accepted it nonetheless. After all, what was there to suspect? Wout feels wrong about the lie, however right now, the desire for truth trumps all moral quandaries, and he knows this is wrong too, but his heart is pounding so fast he can’t think much about it at all.

They pull into Mathieu’s driveway around nine, unfasten his bike and stow it in the garage. After their hour long, silent anticipation, as soon as the kitchen door closes behind them, they’re in each other’s arms, Mathieu kissing Wout with open-mouthed desperation as they both scramble to get out of their coats which end up in heaps on the floor. Mathieu practically shoves Wout through the threshold of his first floor bedroom and Wout’s never been so out of control. No one has ever handled him with such passion before, and there’s something about Mathieu being the same size as him and just as strong that unravels Wout into a mess of wanting.

Against the wall, Mathieu’s mouth is on Wout’s neck, his hands undoing the buttons on Wout’s shirt as quickly as possible, yanking it down his arms before doing the same to his own. They pull each other’s undershirts off, and the sensation of warm skin is dizzying, Mathieu’s hands running up Wout’s torso, feeling what he can, Wout’s arm draped around Mathieu’s shoulder, trying to stay steady. _How is this happening?_

Wout starts to slide down the wall, and the two end up on the floor, Mathieu between Wout’s legs, Wout’s fingernails digging into Mathieu’s back from clutching him so close. It’s only when Mathieu begins to palm Wout through his black jeans that Wout realizes he’s never been so full of desire in all his life. _It’s the power,_ he thinks. _There’s so much strength in everything he does._

Mathieu, with some force and urgency ruts his hips against Wout’s, desperate for contact. He reaches out to pin Wout’s arm above his head, lips heavy against Wout’s ear.

“Oh, god, I’m so hard,” Mathieu whispers, as though astonished.

"I can feel it," Wout murmurs, gripping Mathieu by the hair with his free hand, forcing their mouths together.

The sound of Wout’s belt buckle clinking, the zip of leather being pulled through belt loops.

“Whatever you do,” Wout breathes, Mathieu tilting his head up to meet his companion’s gaze, “Promise me you won’t hold back.”

_Fuck, what a thing to say._

“Okay,” Mathieu chokes out, and they kiss again, rough and needy as they rub against each other through their clothes in naïve desperation until Mathieu can’t take it anymore.

“I want to be inside you,” he whispers, the words sending a shiver down Wout’s spine.

“Yeah, okay,” Wout whispers back, thrilled and afraid, and Mathieu practically drags Wout onto the bed, where they grab and yank at clothing until they’re bare, and _god, this body_ , Wout thinks, running his hands up powerful legs, tight ass, and strong back, _this body, this perfect body_.

The desperation leaves no room for shyness. There’s no apprehension in the way Mathieu spits in his hand and takes Wout in it, in the way tongues are dragged across the expanses of one another’s chests and stomachs as they tangle themselves up in each other’s limbs; no reticence in the way Mathieu crawls down and worships Wout’s thighs, hands grabbing, tongue tasting.

When Wout’s taken in Mathieu’s mouth, it feels absolutely right - he loves the way Wout says his name when he does it, and when Mathieu’s taken in Wout’s mouth, Wout lives for every quiver. But soon impatience leaves them intertwined once again, Mathieu’s hand reaching for the drawer of the nightstand, scrambling to retrieve a bottle of well-hidden lube, one he keeps for the lonely weeks his girlfriend’s out of town. Kissing Wout, he douses his hand in it, spreads it everywhere with no finesse whatsoever, making skin so slippery his fingers just glide in, and after that, Wout closes his eyes and allows himself to be filled by Mathieu, a groan escaping through clenched teeth.

He wonders why such a thing feels so good, why it makes him shiver and quake, his big legs hitched over Mathieu’s shoulders as Mathieu takes him in staggered, deep strokes. Wout reaches up and pulls Mathieu closer, kisses him, holds him there with one hand, reaching down with the other to touch himself. It’s fast and relentless and full of naked, unbridled wanting, the kind that only comes when both parties know they won't get another chance.

In that moment, both could cry out with love for the other, with the catharsis of knowing and being known, but in the smothering heat, they settle for panting into each other’s lips, staring pleadingly into each other’s eyes with awe and amazement and ecstatic helplessness. Swept away.

Mathieu brushes against something deep inside of Wout and Wout’s eyes widen, pupils blown as he begs Mathieu to _stay there, stay there, stay there, please_ , and Mathieu holds on for dear life and follows orders, his movements focused and powerful, his heavy moans choked by the intensity of it all.

When Wout comes, he does so with such violence it tears a cry from within him, washes over him, consumes every part of him and as he watches, the only comparable fervor Mathieu can think of is the way women whimper and tremble when his tongue works wonders between their legs. His own orgasm sneaks up on him in the wake of Wout's grip and shudder, smothering Mathieu all at once, and as he crests it, all he can manage to say is _Wout, fuck._

Stillness.

The sound of panting, the separation of bodies. Wout wipes himself off with his shirt, tosses it on the floor. Mathieu rolls onto his side and they look at one another, both relieved when the disgust both expects never comes. For a long time - whether it's been an hour or mere minutes neither is able to say - they lay face to face and observe the other’s kindness.

“Now we know,” Mathieu whispers, eyes shining in the dim lamplight. Wout smiles at him.

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “Now we know.”

Wout rolls onto his back and Mathieu climbs into his arms.

“You’re the only one who knows who I really am now, I guess,” Mathieu tells him. The thought strikes both as profound.

“Same, Mathieu.”

“And you know what?”

“What?”

“I refuse to feel guilty about this,” Mathieu says, somewhat impassioned. “Whatever this is, it feels like it exists separate from the rest of the world, even though I know that’s not true.”

“Mhm,” Wout affirms, stroking Mathieu’s hair. “I know how you feel.”

“I’m not sorry, you know. How could I be sorry? If we didn’t do this, I’d go my whole life wondering, unsatisfied.”

Another murmur. “True, true.”

Quieter now, insecure. “It was wonderful, Wout, right?”

Wout sighs wearily. “Yeah. It was.”

“Wait, what’s wrong?” Mathieu inquires, concerned by the change in tone.

“I don’t know.” Another sigh. “I guess it’s just, like, everything’s changed instantly.”

Mathieu furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“We’re different people now. We were one way before and now we’re different.”

“I’m not different,” Mathieu protests. “This is just something I’ve done – with you, only with you. Does one act really change who we are, deep down?”

Wout considers this, taking Mathieu’s hand in his own as he does so to show that he is not putting distance between them. Mathieu is thankful for this.

“When you came to the hospital, that changed us too. That made us friends, yeah, but also better people. More open, more compassionate. I don’t know what this has made us. Other than sad and confused.”

“I don’t regret it,” Mathieu tells him again, this time with defiance. “I won’t, either.”

“You’re not married,” Wout mutters.

“That has nothing to do with it," Mathieu argues. "This exists totally separate from that.”

A pause. “I don’t want to go home,” Wout says, changing the conversation once more back into one of quiet vulnerability. Mathieu's relieved.

“Why?”

“Because I know that when I walk through that door, this will be over.”

 _Oh, Wout,_ Mathieu thinks over and over, clutching Wout tighter to him. Mathieu presses his left ear against Wout's chest where it is filled with slow heartbeat.

_Oh, Wout._

* * *

“Wout?”

Barely awake. “Mm? Yeah.”

"Can I be honest with you?" Mathieu asks.

"Of course," Wout says.

"I mean, like, can I tell you some heavy shit right now?"

Wout brushes the hair away from Mathieu's face.

"Always," he reassures him.

“Okay, well...I don’t want to lose you anymore."

Wout's chest hurts.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, before I had accepted that we wouldn’t be friends after the races started back up," Mathieu explains. "But now I don’t understand why we just said, like, okay, that’s how it’s gonna be. Because it doesn’t have to be like that, you know? We can still be who we were in the hospital, in the fields, in the woods. Besides, we've always been different people on and off the bike anyway.”

“What about this, though?” Wout murmurs, asking on impulse what neither has wanted to ask. “What do we do about this?”

“I don’t know,” Mathieu confesses. “All I can say is I’ve never felt so close to anyone before.”

_Fuck, Mathieu, you're killing me. Come here, come here.  
_

"Same." Wout kisses him over and over. "Same."

Another dense, reverent bout of quietude. In it, they listen to the rise and fall of each other’s breathing, trying their best to not let the hurting interfere with their wonderful but ephemeral intimacy.

* * *

The radiators hiss.

“Maybe, sometimes,” Wout wonders aloud, all of a sudden stirred to speech, “Things like this just happen to people, you know?"

"Hmm," Mathieu hums, just to show that he's paying attention despite being so close to sleep.

"They’re like gifts." Wout continues. "And even though I know I’ll feel guilty at some point, I also know that I’m gonna hold onto this for the rest of my life as something good that happened to me, something that helped me understand myself better.”

"Of course," Mathieu mumbles, his face buried in Wout's chest. "I feel that way too."

“At the same time, Mathieu, looking at you like that," - a shaky, pained sigh leaves Wout's lips. "I’d...I'd be lying if I told you my heart’s not breaking right now.”

“What? Why?” Mathieu chokes out, instantly startled by the heavy words. He looks up at his companion.

Wout shakes his head. “It's not you," he explains. "It's just that I wish I knew this about myself before I got married.”

A furrowed brow. “It’s useless to think like that,” Mathieu counters. “We can’t change the past.”

“I know,” Wout mutters.

Mathieu touches Wout's face, and when he speaks, his voice is small and somber.

“Wout, don’t go home tonight. Please.”

Wout's face softens, the all resistance gone. In the moment, his nascent anxiety is replaced by warmth. 

"I told you earlier, I don't want to."

Carefully, reverently, Mathieu traces his fingers down the long scar that trails from Wout’s hip, along the length of his leg, culminating at his knee. He crawls down and kisses him there, and the gesture is powerful for both of them. Wout leans forward to touch Mathieu’s hair, a smile forming at the corner of his lips, his eyes sad as he remembers the hospital, remembers Mathieu covering him with the blanket, remembers the patient hours Mathieu spent watching him sleep, telling him stories, remembers how all this started in the first place: with kindness.

“You’re a good man, Mathieu van der Poel.”

“I try to be,” Mathieu answers quietly.

Wout pulls him into his arms. In them, Mathieu observes the subtle noises of the house and their bodies.

“It’s gonna get cold soon,” Wout says absently, stroking Mathieu’s back.

“It is.”

“Leg warmer season.”

“And gloves.”

Mathieu kisses Wout’s shoulder.

“Wout?” he murmurs into the skin.

“Yeah?”

“I’m so happy right now.”

Wout’s heart swells.

“Me too, Mathieu,” he says. Mathieu peers up at him.

“Then can we do this again?” he asks weakly. “Not too often, I know, but just a little bit?”

“Mathieu…”

Urgency. “I don’t want to go from being known by you to being known by no one at all,” Mathieu pleads. “I don’t want to go back into a world where no one looks at me with understanding.”

These words touch Wout so deeply, correspond so perfectly to what he, too, feels, he knows he can't walk away from this, knows he won't be able to stand a future devoid of it. He sighs lovingly when Mathieu wraps his arms around his back.

“Okay,” Wout breathes, closing his eyes as Mathieu kisses him. “Okay.”

For the first time since Wout’s accident, when he falls asleep with Mathieu by his side, he looks forward to the sun rising up in the morning, reminding him that he is of this world, that the seasons change, that time moves forward. Reaching for the lamp, Wout finds himself wondering how Mathieu’s pale eyelashes will catch the dawn light, and as Mathieu drapes his arm across Wout’s stomach, he wonders if doing so will be enough to keep him there.

Both have their answers tomorrow, and both are satisfied. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> decided to switch it up and have mathieu top lol


End file.
